


grey areas and expectations

by celestialfics (orphan_account), danthrusts



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Teachers, Cliche, Fluff, M/M, Memes, Secret Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-27
Updated: 2016-04-27
Packaged: 2018-06-04 19:15:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,992
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6672055
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/celestialfics, https://archiveofourown.org/users/danthrusts/pseuds/danthrusts
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Mr. Howell and Mr. Lester both start their first years of teaching in America at the same time, the students notice their mutual British accents and immediately get to work snooping, observing, and theorizing. The curiosity of the students added to the constant "threat" of fellow teacher Ms. Christensen equals nothing short of a chaotic school year full of memes, plants, and maybe a little bit of needed privacy in the teachers’ lounge closet.</p>
            </blockquote>





	grey areas and expectations

Students kind of had a feeling that they were in for one hell of a school year when they walked into Mr. Daniel Howell’s English classroom to see motivational Pepe frogs lining the walls of the small room and _Kanye Quote of the Day_ scrawled messily across the whiteboard. (The quote, by the way, was “ _My music isn’t just music — it’s medicine._ ”)

Mr. Howell greeted them with a “Hello,” and “choose a seat,” as they entered the dimly lit room. Everywhere the students glanced, a strange, sad frog met their sight, _Believe You Can_ scripted at the bottom of each and every picture.

(A few days prior, back at the Howell-Lester home, Dan had feverishly been printing and pasting the memes, preparing for the new school year. Phil had been ready for months, tutting at Dan for procrastinating as per usual.

“Come here Phil, help me glue these words to the bottom of my Pepes,” Dan ordered, Phil scoffing in response.

“First off, you do not need that many Pepe frogs. Second, the students are going to _hate_ you.” Phil glanced down at the frogs scattered across the floor, “Anyway, why do you have so many?”

“Well,” Dan started, “look at it this way. Picture students walking into my room, and they’re having a bad day. The Pepes are there to _comfort_ them.”

“Jesus Christ.”

“It’s like you with your plants!” Dan attempted to justify his absurd idea, but Phil was having none of it.)

The bell rang, signifying the start of the hour. The students shifted their eyes around the room, trying to find old friends from the previous year to latch onto. Dan made his way to the front of the room and clasped his hands together before giving them a proper introduction.

“Hello, my name is Mr. Howell, and unfortunately you have been cursed with me as your English teacher this year,” he let out a small chuckle and gestured to the whiteboard behind him, several students commenting quietly to their friends about his accent. “because, as you can see, my handwriting is nothing short of hieroglyphics.” No one laughed at his self-deprecation, so he moved on. “Right. So,” he glanced back up at the whiteboard, “Kanye West will have a large role in this class, uh,” Dan hadn’t necessarily prepared for the class to be so stoic, and none of his attempts at humor seemed to lead anywhere. “Why don’t you all tell me a little about yourselves? We’ll start with—you.” His eyes landed on the girl sat in the front row, farthest over. “Just say your name and a fact about yourself.”

She thought for a moment before a devious smirk spread across her cheeks. “My name’s Caroline and I like British accents.” Some of the other students nodded in agreement. Dan laughed, albeit uncomfortably, before nodding his head at the next person behind her.

“You’re next,” he stated to the student, eager to get away from the subject. Sure, he’d expected it, as anyone moving to another country should. Americans were often obsessed with British culture, and Dan knew that, but he’d kind of forgotten. Well, he’d quickly been reminded as the class bursted into chatter about his accent rather than paying attention to the next student introducing themselves.

“I’m sorry—Jeremy, was it? Your classmates are being _rude_ , could you please repeat yourself and possibly your fellow peers will listen this time?” Dan raised his voice slightly, just enough to be heard over the chatter. The class’s volume dropped. “Thank you.” He gestured for Jeremy to repeat his name and special fact about himself. There weren’t many interruptions after that; they barrelled through the class, each person stating their name and a fact, and then when they were through, they reached the teacher himself.

“As I’ve already said, I’m Mr. Howell. I have a strong affinity for irony and Winnie the Pooh, but those are things we’ll discuss later on in the year.”

A boy in the back of the class snorted. Dan shot a look in that direction as he made his way toward his desk. He picked up a stack the syllabi from the surface and began to count the papers, giving each front row student a pile to take one and pass back. When everyone had one, he read aloud the rules and expectations of the class, as well as the grading system (which they probably already knew better than him; while Dan had grasped the differences between American and British school relatively quickly, a few things remained strange), and starting dates of a few of the bigger projects they would be doing in weeks to come.

“If you ever need to get ahold of me, my classroom phone number is printed on this sheet, as well as my email.” He pointed at the top of the paper. “I can’t imagine the classroom phone number being very useful, unless your parents need to call me about something, and I’m not necessarily glued to my school email while at home—”

The students understood; they’d been getting this same spiel from various teachers for years. “If you ever have questions on homework, stop by in the morning or after school and I can try to answer those for you, as I’ll probably be here.” The students began packing their bags; he turned to face the clock behind him, the face showing that the class had one minute left. “I suppose that’s all; have a nice day and I will see you tomorrow.”

The shrill sound of the bell pierced through the room, the students standing from their seats before the bell had even stopped ringing.

Students who had just had Dan were shocked when they entered their science classroom to be greeted by another British teacher. This room, however, was covered in various different plants rather than memes. The kids were mostly thankful.

As the bell rang once more, noting the start of the next period, the grinning teacher before them scribbled his name on the board in bright green marker, pushing his thick-framed glasses up from the bridge of his nose. Phil had set out name places for the students prior to them entering the room, already more prepared than Dan. Many students groaned as they noticed their pre-assigned seats weren’t near their friends, but Phil had blindly placed them anyway, so they couldn’t really complain.

“Hello, and welcome to your biology class! I’m Mr. Lester and it’s a pleasure to have you all in class today.” Someone in the back mumbled that it wasn’t a pleasure to be at school in the first place, but Phil ignored it.

One student shot her hand up before Phil had even stopped talking, so he tilted his head at her, prompting her to ask whatever she had on her mind. “Are you related to Mr. Howell?”

It seemed as though half the class understood who she was talking about, while the other half hadn’t been in the English classroom yet.

“Ah, right. No.” Phil smiled a close-lipped smile; he and Dan had agreed prior to not disclose anything about their relationship. “Anyway, I figured—” He was cut off by another student raising their hand, “Yeah?”

“Are you sure you and Mr. Howell aren’t related? You two are both British,” a student commented as they swiftly placed their hand on the lab table.

“Not all British people are related to each other; we don’t even have the same accent. Mr. Howell is more southern and I was raised in the north… of England.” Phil raised an eyebrow as he turned toward the class. “Any more pulsating questions before we play the game I had planned?”

“You’ve spent a lot of time listening to Mr. Howell’s accent?”

“— _Anyway_ ,” Phil stressed, turning his back to the students and uncapping his green marker yet again. He began to write on the board, the words reading “The 7 Second Challenge”.

“So, as the title encompasses, this game is quickfire,” Phil began. “Instead of each of you filling out a boring questionnaire, I thought of a more fun alternative. We’ll split in teams down the middle,” Phil pointed at the middle of the class, and the students on each side looked at the ones on the other. “Basically, I’m going to ask you questions about yourselves and you have seven seconds to answer. If you manage to, your team gets a point. If you fail, well, better luck next time!”

“What do we win?” a boy spoke up, the rest of the class grinning alongside him, eager to hear what prize they were to compete for.

“It’s always about winning,” Phil shook his head, “but the winning team gets to name our first class fish.” He gestured at the empty fish tank. “First, we need team names.”

Both sides of the room made eye contact with each other, before one side shouted out “We’re team Howell!!” and the other shortly after, “And we’re the Lesters.” The students had mischievous glints to their eyes as their teacher stared back at them in confusion.

“That’s seriously what you want?” He crinkled his nose, sighing and writing the names on the board nonetheless when the students all nodded in approval. “Are you ready to play?” The class collectively nodded after a moment of hesitation. “Who wants to go first?”

Three kids shot up their hands, ready to start earning points for their teams. Phil picked the girl in the front who had lifted her hand first, “Okay. You have seven seconds to spell your favorite color backwards.”

“I—uh, no that wasn’t a letter—”

“Just go!” a student yelled, and she snapped into it.

“Right. U-E-L—wait, no,” she facepalmed as Phil called time and the rest of her team groaned.

“Although that was an _almost_ impressive spelling of your favorite color, unfortunately you and your team did not manage to score a point.” He directed his attention toward the other side of the room where many overjoyed teenagers sat. “Who wants to go first over here?”

An overly self-assured male strode up to the front of his team, smacking his lip profoundly as he stuck out his jaw. He rose his hand. Phil laughed, looking him up and down. “You seem quite confident. Okay, you have seven seconds to make up a song about your favorite animal.”

The boy’s eyes grew in size as if he’d forgotten every single animal in the world. He finally began to sing the word “dogs” in soprano for three seconds until the timer buzzed.

“While creative, singing the word ‘dogs’ for three seconds is not a song about your favorite animal… but, you should join choir,” Phil spoke in a serious tone, causing the boy to glare at him. “Who’s next?”

No one volunteered, so Phil decided to raise the prize; “The first person to succeed wins _two_ points for their team!”

One hesitant hand slowly raised, to which Phil grinned. “There we go!” he looked down at his challenge sheet and picked one out, “Spell out your first name, but get louder and louder as you go on with each letter.”

The solid second of panic on the student’s face before they started spelling certainly didn’t help them win the challenge, but with the leftover six they managed to increase from a whisper to a shout over six letters.

“Finally, we have a winner!” Phil exclaimed, drawing two tally marks underneath “Team Howell”. The team cheered, high-fiving the person who had just won points. The kids on the other team playfully booed, eager to get another turn and win some points. “Unfortunately my two point offer was limited time only,” Phil chuckled as the losing team groaned. “so this is for _one_ point; who’s going?”

The class continued on until each student had one turn, and despite their disadvantage, The Lesters emerged victorious. A loud cheer was followed by the team huddling and discussing fish name ideas, finally deciding on one after the whole team burst into giggles. The losing team watched with classroom scorn as the winners proclaimed, “We want to name the fish Queen Elizabeth!” Even the losers couldn’t help but crack smiles at that.

Phil raised an eyebrow before shrugging and writing the name at the top of the whiteboard for later reference. Then, he explained to the class, “I won’t be buying the fish. Whenever you win fish at fairs or even if you just want to buy me a fish, I’ll be glad to take it, but I won’t be buying any.”

The bell rang shortly after, the students filing in and out of classrooms in a trained fashion. Each class the two teachers had were relatively similar, including a room full of students who weren’t really willing to participate. They both hoped that while the school year progressed, the students would become more engaged. They understood, though, that this _was_ the beginning of the year and most students weren’t exactly thrilled on the first day of school. They weren’t quite thrilled themselves.

Dan and Phil were practically starving by the time lunch rolled around; they were so used to the summer schedule—eating whatever and whenever they wanted—they didn’t account for how hungry they would be when the school year began. The two had made special requests to get the same preparatory hour (basically an hour off from students; a break) and their requests were thankfully approved by administration.

After only a few hours, the pair of teachers already had so much to tell each other, from students they already began suspect to be trouble to the obvious connections the students had made between the two British teachers. The latter was probably the most prominent; they hadn’t expected to be put under such pressure so quickly. They needed to formulate a cover-up story, and fast (before prep was over, naturally).

They decided to eat their lunches in the teachers’ lounge; that way, if students walked in their classrooms for help, they wouldn’t be caught together. Also, Phil couldn’t stand all the motivational frogs pasted on Dan’s walls and Dan didn’t like to eat in the science room in case of “stray chemicals.”

“So,” Phil started with a slight smile, sitting next to Dan at the teachers’ lounge table, “We’re cousins, then?”

“No!” Dan objected, “Definitely not. Because we know they’re going to find out eventually.”

“…Brothers?”

“Shut up; incest is out of the question.”

“That’s probably a good thing—”

“You _think_?” Dan showcased his usual sarcastic self, which he often tried to repress in front of students.

“What are we then? We know they won’t buy ‘roommates’.” Phil picked at his lunch.

Dan thought for a moment. “We’re just two bro pals, bro-ing it up in America. Living _la vida loca_.” Dan’s primal Spanish was hideous, causing Phil to burst out laughing.

“It’s a good thing the Spanish teacher isn’t here, because they would definitely kick you out.”

“Actually,” Dan grinned, “I met Señora Moran, and she thinks I’m _young_ and _cute_.” He squished his cheeks. “She’s super old.”

“Dan!”

“What?”

Phil sighed, “Anyway.”

“Anyway,” Dan repeated.

Before either of them could continue, the lounge door swung open. A woman with a shoulder-length brunette bob haircut strode into the room, smiling brightly at the teachers at the table. She approached them, offering her hand for a handshake. Dan stared at her hand, Phil giving him a warning look before taking her hand and saying, “Nice to meet you, I’m Phil Lester.”

“Dan Howell,” Dan nodded.

“Nice to meet you both! I’m Beth Christensen; I teach Earth Science just down the hall—actually, I think our rooms are right next to each other!” she spoke to Phil, her grin not leaving her face. Dan thought she was too happy; he forced a smile anyway. (Or maybe he didn’t like the attention Phil was giving her. He couldn’t help being jealous; it was his nature.)

She took a yogurt out of the teachers’ lounge fridge and waved as she left the room, Phil waving back in return.

“You know,” Phil said after she’d gone, “she kind of looks like you.”

Dan creased his eyebrows, looking at Phil as if he were growing a third eye. “I don’t see it.” Phil cocked an eyebrow, but Dan quickly changed the subject to their previous issue. “So, to bro or not to bro?”

“I thought you already said no to incest,” Phil teased, to which Dan rolled his eyes.

“Bro-pal-friend-dude-buddy.”

“Wow, I didn’t think I’d hear my husband call me that today.”

Dan tugged at the ring he hung underneath his shirt on a chain around his neck and smiled. “Every day is full of surprises.” He snorted.

“Okay, but seriously. We’re not bro-pals. What about—” Phil tapped his finger on his chin, “—You know, foreign exchange students? What about… foreign exchange teachers?”

“Do they have that?” Dan wondered aloud, tapping his fingers on the table.

“I don’t know. They do now!” Phil exclaimed, though he still picked up his cellphone to look up ‘foreign exchange teachers’. Fortunately, it was an actual thing.

“Right,” Dan started, “So, we’re ‘foreign exchange teachers’ from the UK. Nice.”

“Yep. And we’re definitely, totally, entirely not-married.” Phil winked, to which Dan glanced guiltily down at where his ring was hanging.

“Not-married.”

* * *

Dan attempted to hum along to something by Kanye West as he put together a seating chart for his students—something he probably should have done before the school year began but, well, he was Dan. He tapped his fingers on the desk to the beat of the song and sorted first period into their seats. As he began on his second period class, he heard someone knocking at the door. When he looked up, he fully expected Phil to be standing there with some kind of potted plant or something, but a student with a dark complexion, short pink hair, and glasses stood nervously at the doorway. He nodded at the student to come in and paused the music.

“What can I help you with?” Dan reached for an inkpen and directed his attention at the student.

“Hi, uh, Mr. Howell,” they pursed their lips, approaching their teacher. “I haven’t… I haven’t told anyone else about this really yet, but—” they stopped, looking down at their feet.

“Yeah? It’s okay; you can tell me.” Dan cocked his head to the side and looked at the student with curious eyes.

They swallowed thickly. “I know everyone in class calls me Caroline. I- uh, I’d prefer if you called me Flynn?” they said, as if it were a question. “And gender-neutral pronouns would be great as well.” Their voice shook with nerves, but Dan replied positively immediately.

“Of course!” Dan smiled, and as soon as he did, the student perked up as well. “By the way, I really like your hair. Back when I was a kid I always wanted to dye my hair red, but my mum would never let me.” Dan figured the student would appreciate his quick tension-relieving anecdote.

“Thank you,” Flynn smiled and ran their fingers through their hair. “Also, Mr. Howell, I think you would look fantastic with red hair.”

Dan chuckled, “Thanks! Maybe some day I’ll dye it. And if you ever need to talk to me about anything else, don’t hesitate.” He cast a warm smile in their direction, and they grinned back.

“English teachers are always the best,” they mused before waving goodbye and exiting the classroom, leaving Dan to press play on his Kanye music and arrange more seating charts. After an hour of painstakingly placing faces in boxes for five seating charts, he finally had them all done. His work was pretty much done for the day after finishing those seating charts, as the first day never really encompassed much.

He gathered his things and started toward Phil’s classroom to see if the science teacher was ready to leave as well. And as it turned out, Phil missed being in a lab. This fact presented itself to Dan as he walked into the science room to see Phil surrounded by beakers and various explicitly labeled containers. He leaned against the doorway and watched as Phil carefully mixed them together; they began to foam and harden over the beaker.

“Hey, _Phil Nye the science guy_ ,” Dan fully entered the room and hoisted himself up onto one of the lab tables. Phil looked up from his creation and rolled his eyes. His hair was pushed up into a messy black quiff, a sight in which Dan pocketed for later.

“Time to go, already?” Phil asked, pushing some chemicals off to the side and beginning to wipe up some of the mess he’d made.

“I can just sit and watch for awhile,” Dan suggested, leisurely swinging his legs underneath the table.

“I’m just messing around, really. We can go home if you want to.” Phil finished putting things away before slipping off his gloves and washing his hands before ruffling his fringe back over his forehead.

“How was your first day?” Dan changed the subject as he hopped down off of the desk.

“I’d say it went pretty well; the students liked my game! I bet I could profit off of the idea.”

A fond smile crept onto Dan’s face as he watched Phil gather his things off his desk. “You think so?”

“Mhmm. How was your day?”

“I don’t think anyone here appreciates my sense of humor.” Dan frowned. “Unless they’re all too shy to laugh at jokes about Kanye West.”

“They’ll start laughing when they realize you’re serious,” Phil teased, slipping his wedding ring out of a pocket in his wallet and onto his finger. Rather than wearing it around his neck all day, Phil opted to just leaving the ring out of sight during the school day (though Dan was scared he might lose it).

Dan playfully shoved Phil as they exited his classroom, heading out to the parking lot. After a quick and probably unnecessary check for students watching, the pair of teachers climbed into their car and drove back to their shared home.

Granted, ‘home’ was just an apartment. There wasn’t much more they could afford; teachers don’t exactly get paid the same thing neurosurgeons do. Nonetheless, it was home. With small, multicolored trinkets lining the windowsills and bookshelves, stickers lining every surface (that was Phil’s doing), and generally just a welcoming aura, the duo would not rather call any other place home.

Dan kicked off his shoes, happily thinking that it was finally time to relax after the always long first day of school—until Phil peeked out of the kitchen with a huge smile and a large plastic bag full of sugar cookie mix.

“Wha—Phil!” Dan rolled his eyes, still propping his feet up on the coffee table.

“We have to celebrate!” Phil exclaimed. “I figured the students would appreciate some cookies after that first day of school.”

“…We have, like, a hundred and fifty students each. That’s a shit ton of cookies.”

“Yeah, but we’re just making them for my students.” Phil clarified. “We can’t be _that_ obvious on the second day.” He laughed. “Besides, I bought a ton of cookie mix! Get up, we’re baking cookies, whether you want to or not.”

Dan groaned before hauling himself up off of the couch and following Phil into the kitchen. “Are you sure we even have enough of the ingredients?” Dan eyed the bag. “I mean, that’s _a lot_ of cookie mix.”

Phil shrugged. “I bought an extra carton of eggs.”

“Are we going to decorate them?” Dan glanced around the kitchen for decorating supplies. “I want to make one Shrek.”

Phil rolled his eyes. “First of all, no, you’re not making Shrek.” He reached forward and smacked him with the whisk. “And second of all, do you seriously think we could decorate that many cookies? You get sick of decorating after, like, twenty.”

Dan scowled, but pursed his lips and admitted defeat soon thereafter.

And really, Dan shouldn’t have worn black pants. After the first batch, he realized this mistake as Phil had spilled flour on him while stirring the bowl. To get back at Phil, Dan had taken a pinch of flour and thrown it into Phil’s face. Of course, with Phil’s luck, his mouth was open. Maybe the baking turned into a competition of who could _subtly_ get more flour on the other person, but Dan figured he won when he left a great big handprint on Phil’s ass.

As it turned out, spatial planning beforehand would’ve been an advantage to the two men. Their one counter couldn’t hold more than two batches of cookies; where would they keep the other six? The dining room table became covered in cookies as well, and as a final resort, the coffee table in the living room took on a batch or two. By the time all the cookies had all been prepared and baked, they never wanted to see another cookie ever again (unless they were eating them).

“Your students better appreciate these,” Dan said as he wiped his clammy forehead, accidentally spreading flour onto his face with the action.

“They will,” Phil assured, ripping a paper-towel off of the roll and wetting it slightly before wiping it across Dan’s face to take off the flour.

* * *

At the sound of the bell signifying the beginning of the second school day of the year, students made their way to their seats, only to be told to stand up a moment later.

“I _slaved_ over these seating charts last night,” Dan began, “So, everyone just stand up against the wall over there until your name is called.”

As a group, the kids stood from their seats and sauntered over to the wall Dan had specified, awaiting the call of their name before they proceeded to their assigned seat.

“Now,” Dan said, “If you’re sat by someone you don’t like—well, deal with it. It’s not like you have to marry them.” Several students rolled their eyes at Dan’s statement and exchanged looks with their newfound neighbors. “Of course, if you can’t see from your spot, I’ll move you. Any questions or complaints?”

Dan stared at his students in silence, but none of them raised their hands. “Great.” Dan clasped his own hands together and forced a smile before uncapping a dry erase maker and writing ‘Chapter 1: Parts of Speech’ on the whiteboard. “Get out a notebook and something to write with—but first, can anyone tell me what these ‘parts of speech’ are?”

Granted, no one raised their hand to answer. So, Dan jumped right into the lesson, writing key points on the board and assigning something out of the grammar book he’d handed out earlier for homework. Several students groaned at the fact, but Dan just told them that if they’d participated more in class, there wouldn’t have been any homework. Perhaps that was a bad tactic to begin on, but Dan didn’t think so. He’d rather get all the hard grammar stuff out of the way in the beginning so that the literature units would come and everyone would be relieved to be reading.

Plus, he gave all the students plenty of time after he’d finished the lesson to do their homework, and with the allotted time, they should’ve been able to get it done. He didn’t see why they were complaining ( _If they’d just work instead of complain…_ ). He knew, though, no matter how much time he gave them, there would be at least one person the next day without it finished—which, to be fair, would have been him when he was still in school.

Dan took it upon himself, at this point, to update the _Kanye Quote of the Day_ to “I was never really good at anything except for the ability to learn.” He also added a small scribbling of “#Kanye2020” above the quote, and then he looked upon his work with a small, satisfied smile. Kanye would be proud.

“You know he’s not actually gonna run, right?” someone spoke up from the front row of desks, prompting Dan to glare back at them.

“What makes you so sure, Corey?” Dan cocked an eyebrow, resisting the urge to place a hand on his hip.

He shrugged, “Even if he did run, he’d get scared off by Trump.”

Dan sighed; he knew he wasn’t supposed to share his political views with students. “I don’t believe Mr. Trump will be running again after his defeat in 2016.”

“He’s gonna make America great again!” Corey argued, but Dan just shook his head and walked back over to his desk, thanking any gods out there that Corey wasn’t old enough to vote yet.

* * *

While Dan handed out homework, Phil became the favorite by passing out the cookies he and Dan had made the night prior. Of course, he claimed to have made them all by himself, but not many of the students bought that story.

The story in specific was that Phil made the cookies to apologize for the boring first section of biology he was about to teach. “Biodiversity & Classification” usually didn’t pan out to be many students’ favorite—and it certainly wasn’t a favorite portion to teach, either. Phil just couldn’t think of any way to make taxonomic groups or binomial nomenclature interesting. In theory, if the students were busy munching on cookies, they’d be awake while he droned on about the human scientific classification names.

Well, Phil wasn’t exactly surprised when he spotted the first yawn of the school year about twenty minutes into class. He tried to make things a little more fun by offering cookies for correct answers to his questions, but unfortunately there was just no way to make biodiversity any more appealing.

By the time lunch rolled around, Phil was yawning himself.

Phil made it to the teachers’ lounge before Dan, so he made himself a cup of coffee and took a seat, waiting for Dan to walk in and tell him about something weird a student had done—because heaven knows no students were doing much more that eating and yawning in his class.

Phil was definitely not disappointed when Dan came into the teachers’ lounge, ranting about an ignorant kid who believed Donald Trump would actually make America great again. “He _actually_ believes that Trump would be a better president than Kanye West,” Dan complained as he unwrapped his food. “Not only is he completely wrong, but he’s incredibly stupid. I’m positive literally _anyone_ would make a better president than Donald Trump.”

“You can’t just call your students _stupid_ , Dan,” Phil chuckled, “Even if it’s true.”

Dan groaned, picking at his lunch.

“When you decided to become a teacher, you had to have known you’d need to deal with this kind of stuff,” Phil reasoned, taking a drink of his coffee.

“When I decided to become a teacher, I didn’t know somebody like _Donald Trump_ would run for president.”

Phil hesitated, “Touché.”

“Anyway,” Dan said, “Since I’ve gotten that out of my system, how do the kids like the cookies?”

“More than they like talking about biology, that’s for sure.” Phil frowned playfully, swishing around the coffee in his cup.

“That’s a given.”

Phil almost protested, but he didn’t have it in him. Even he had to admit cookies were infinitely better than learning biology.

And, because of those cookies, the students had all picked their favorite teachers by the second day, 90% of which picked Mr. Lester. Maybe the general consensus would have been more equal if the kids knew that Phil and Dan had made the cookies together.

(Dan definitely wasn’t offended; Mr. Lester would’ve been his favorite teacher, too.)

* * *

As the days and weeks passed, the students began to get more bold about their seemingly extreme liking to Mr. Lester. After school had been in session for a few months, they were practically off the walls, constantly talking about what he’d worn that day or something he’d said in class. At first, Dan enjoyed hearing the students talk about his husband, to know what he’d been getting up to in class, but as it continued it became less enjoyable—especially when he overheard students talking about their crushes on the biology teacher.

“You know he’s thirty-one and that’s completely, utterly illegal, right?” Dan couldn’t contain himself from cutting into the conversation any longer.

“I’ll be eighteen soon enough.” One student shrugged, the other nodding in agreement.

Dan crinkled his nose, turning away from the kids and back to the whiteboard. He glanced up at his Kanye quote; he’d gotten a bit lazy with them recently, so the title had transformed into _Kanye Quote of the Day (Or Two)_ , despite the fact the same quote had been on the board for about a week, at that point.

“Why do you even _care_ if we talk about Mr. Lester?”

Dan was torn from his thoughts by the inquiry, to which he sighed, “Because it’s creepy and weird and may I repeat, _illegal._ ”

The pair looked to each other before one sarcastically replied, “ _Sure._ And anyway, it’s not illegal to talk about.”

“Well,” Dan fumbled, “it’s illegal in my classroom.”

The students snorted. “Right.”

“What do _you_ think about Mr. Lester?” A student that had been listening in on the conversation butted in.

Dan hesitated. “I don’t think of him much.” Lie.

The kid looked at him skeptically but shrugged and decided that finishing their homework was more important than forcing details out of Mr. Howell.

Meanwhile, in Mr. Lester’s classroom, the students were welcoming their first fish.

Phil grinned as he moved the fish from its temporary container and into the large tank. “Welcome to class, Queen Elizabeth. I hope you’re excited to learn about biology!”

The class laughed as the purple fish splashed into the tank water.

“Aww,” one girl cooed, “It’s lonely.”

“That just means it has plenty of room to explore,” Phil smiled and sprinkled fish food into the tank. “But I’m sure it’ll have loads of friends joining it soon.

“Thanks, Bridget, for our first fish!” Phil grinned at the girl and walked back to the front of the classroom. “If any of you want to bring in another fish, I encourage you to do so.”

“Can I bring in a clownfish on Monday?” someone called out from the back of the room.

“You can bring in any _freshwater_ fish,” Phil explained, “Except Betta fish. For obvious reasons.”

After the excitement of their new classmate settled down, Phil assigned a short worksheet on primary versus secondary succession. Most of the students understood the concept, so they finished before the class period ended.

The bell chimed and the students scurried out, so Phil went to place some papers on his desk before he’d make his way to the teachers’ lounge. Before he’d finished the first, he heard the click of high-heels on his classroom floor.

“Hello?” Phil turned to meet Beth Christensen.

“Hi! I was wondering if you could help me reach this box in my classroom?” She smiled and glanced back out of the class door. “Even with high-heels,” she chuckled, “I can’t reach it. And the janitors must hate me, because they always put it up there.”

Phil laughed in response, “I’d be happy to help.”

“Bless you.”

Beth led Phil out of his classroom and into hers, pointing up at the box occupying a space on top of a cabinet.

“I don’t even know how anyone gets it up there. Do they use a ladder? I don’t have a ladder in here,” Beth pondered as Phil reached up and hooked his hands on the corners of the box. “Or maybe they’re just as tall as you are.”

Phil smiled as he eased the box down into his arms and set it on a nearby table.

Beth opened the box to reveal several different rocks and stones and things, which made complete sense to Phil since she _was_ an Earth science teacher.

She picked up a fairly plain looking rock and said, “This one’s my favorite, ‘cause of the way it glitters in the light.” She held the rock up towards the fluorescent light, turning it to show Phil the sparkles. “Anyway, I hate to bore you with rocks. Thanks for the help, and I’m sorry for interrupting your prep hour!”

“It’s seriously no problem,” Phil assured, “And I think rocks are interesting, as well. Don’t worry about boring me; I teach about mitochondria over and over again.”

He then bid the other teacher farewell and finally began to make his way to the teachers’ lounge. A bundle of students spotted him exiting Ms. Christensen’s room. The students giggled as Phil waved at them. A girl with dark curls leaned in and whispered something to another student, laughing slightly as she pulled away from her friend’s ear.

When Phil arrived in the teachers’ lounge, Dan was already sitting there, filing papers in his 3 ringed binder and sipping on coffee. He glanced up from his work when he heard Phil’s footsteps and smiled.

“Where’ve you been?” Dan asked as he slid a lesson plan into the binder.

“Beth needed help getting a box down and I was happy to assist.” Phil grinned and pulled a seat up next to Dan. He sat in it and peered over his shoulder.

“Beth?” Dan stopped working and looked at Phil, a brow raised in confusion. He couldn’t recall meeting a Beth.

“Ms. Christensen,” Phil answered. “She teaches Earth science in the room next to mine. Brunette hair, she’s quite short and kind of looks like you.”

“ _Oh_.” Dan tried to hide his jealousy, but he was never good at it. “Yeah, I remember her. We met her on the first day; I can’t say I’ve spoken to her since.”

Phil rolled his eyes.

Of course, since the first day, both Dan and Phil had become acquaintances with many more teachers than just Beth. There was Josie in art, Mark in math, Stephanie in woodshop, Diane in health… the list goes on. Dan hadn’t put forth any extra effort to communicate with any of them. (And, well, that was to be expected.) Phil, on the other hand, had gotten along with plenty of his co-workers, so much so that they began to tell him the “school secrets”, like which lunch lady would give him a bunch of free cookies if he asked for them or how C7 on the vending machine often times dispensed two packages of crackers instead of one.

Dan wasn’t missing out on much, and Phil usually gave Dan the extra pack of crackers.

“So,” Dan began, “Lots of students like you, you know.”

“Of course they do. I’m a great science teacher,” Phil nodded to himself, causing Dan to huff. “Also, that reminds me; Amber asked for extra help on her homework after school today.”

“No, I mean they _like_ you.”

“Oh. What?” Phil lifted an eyebrow, awaiting elaboration.

“Well, for example, just today one said they’d be eighteen soon and… insinuated that it would then be legal for them to have a relationship with you,” Dan said, pursing his lips afterwards.

Phil laughed, “Surely they’re just joking?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Trying to rile you up?”

Dan blushed, “Maybe.”

“Well, it’s working.” Phil took a bite of the sandwich he’d brought.

Throwing his hands up, Dan continued, “I bet Amber doesn’t actually need any help on her, what is it, Punnett squares? She probably just wants to gawk over you. Who actually wants to stay after school on a Friday for help?”

“They’re not on genetics yet,” Phil corrected, “And don’t talk about the students like that. I’m sure they value education more than you think.”

Dan raised his eyebrows, “If I were a student and you were my teacher, I don’t think education would be the first thing on my mind.”

“Shut up.” Phil scrunched his nose in disgust. “I don’t want to think of you as one of my students.”

“Student x Teacher isn’t something I should add to the _Book of Kinks_?”

“Dan!” Phil blushed, “That’s not a thing… is it?”

Dan only winked in response.

It was that moment when the lounge door swung open and Mrs. Pieterson strode in. The principal cocked her head at the pair of teachers, seemingly analyzing them. She creased her eyebrows when she noticed the red on Phil’s face, “Mr. Lester, why in heavens are you so red? Are you ill?”

“No, ma’am,” Phil stumbled, “I’m fine. Just need a drink, s’all.”

Dan swallowed thickly and pursed his lips to contain his laughter.

Mrs. Pieterson nodded curtly, her naturally coiled black hair bouncing once at the movement. She then continued to the fridge, claiming a bottle of water before again exiting the room.

After the door clicked shut and the principal’s footsteps could no longer be heard, Dan burst into the laughter he had before been holding. Phil glared at him, twisting the cap off his own water bottle and gulping down a bit of it.

“Thanks a lot for that, Dan.”

“My pleasure, really.”

* * *

The rest of the day more or less went smoothly—Dan got into an argument with a student about the _Bee Movie_ and Phil accidentally watered one of his plants with some old mouthwash he’d been using in an experiment, but that was less incidents than usual.

By the time school had ended, Dan had forgotten that Phil had to help out a student.

Swinging open the door to the biology room without hesitation, Dan took two steps into the room before observing Phil and a student crouched over a sheet of paper on one of the lab tables.

“Da—Mr. Howell?” Phil cleared his throat, obviously trying to cover the situation. “What do you need?”

“I, uh,” Dan scratched the back of his neck, thinking fast. “I was wondering if… you had a key to the maintenance closet. I spilled some whiteboard cleaner and I figured that since you’re a science teacher they’d give you that key.”

The student, Amber, eyed both of the men suspiciously. Dan could practically see her theorizing.

Phil reluctantly walked over to his desk and dug through a few drawers. He couldn’t find a real maintenance key, but he figured Dan didn’t _actually_ need one, so he pulled his keyring from one of the drawers and picked a random key. He held the key out to Dan with a polite smile, “Here you are.”

“Thanks.” Dan gave a pursed-lipped smile and backed out of the room, clenching the key in his fist. It was their apartment key.

Dan let out a sigh as he walked back into his own classroom.

While Phil explained the biology lesson to Amber, Dan busied himself with other tasks that needed to be done. He still had a few more assignments to grade and though he’d planned to grade them later that night or later over the weekend, he figured he’d might as well do them while waiting for Phil to finish up.

As he started to correct some papers, Dan wondered how some of his students came up with their wrong answers. One kid spelled it “Edgar Allan Pie.” He took off half a point and next to it wrote “It’s not _The Telltale Pastries_ , Matt.”

As it turned out, misspelling Edgar Allan Poe’s name was a common occurrence in his students’ papers. Dan made it a game to see how many Edgar Allan Poe puns he could come up with based on their misspellings.

He thought of sixteen, and he’d be lying if he said he wasn’t proud of himself. (Though, had Phil seen this, he’d probably just have said “Edgar Allan _Why_?”.)

After Dan finished grading the papers, he checked his phone to see if Phil had finished his session yet. He hadn’t, so Dan took to updating the _Kanye Quote of the Day._ (Which was well needed, since it’d somehow become the _Kanye Quote of the Week_.)

He smiled fondly at the writing— _“If you have the opportunity to play the game of life, you need to appreciate every moment.”_ —before he realigned some desks so that they sat again in a straight line once again.

As he was about to move onto the next column of desks, his phone sounded from where he’d placed it earlier on his desk. He strode over to it, grasping it to see the message that lit up the screen.

_“That took longer than expected. Ready now”_

The message prompted Dan to click his phone off and grab his bag off his desk chair, starting his way to Phil’s room (for the second time). He paused before gently pressing the door open, peeking his head inside. With no sight of any students, Dan pushed the door fully open and entered the room.

“Just one kid took that long?” Dan asked, watching as Phil stood from his desk and took out his wallet to slip on his wedding ring.

“Well, no. She was good a while ago. I had to get a schedule ready for next week.”

Dan huffed, “You couldn’t do that at home?”

“It’s easier when I’m ‘in the zone’,” Phil replied, bumping shoulders with Dan as he walked past him and out of his classroom door. Dan followed closely behind.

“So how did the tutoring go, then?” Dan asked as he tugged at the strap of his bag.

“It went well,” Phil answered. “She missed a day earlier this week so I just had to catch her up.”

“And you’re sure she wasn’t just gawking at you?” Dan inquired, to which Phil sighed.

“Yes, Dan, she just _stared_ at me the whole time,” he teased, “But anyway, it’s weird how you’re jealous of a bunch of sixteen-year-olds.”

“I’m not jealous,” Dan countered, crossing his arms. “I’m just…”

“Jealous.”

“Shut up.”

They’d reached the car, at that point, so Phil got into the driver’s side—which he was still getting used to; why did England have to be so difficult and have it the opposite way?—while Dan dropped his bag into the back seat and got into the passenger’s.

“What’d you do while you were waiting?” Phil asked as he stuck the key into the ignition and started the car.

“I made sixteen Edgar Allan Poe puns,” Dan spoke as he retrieved the apartment key Phil had lended him from his pocket. He set it on the console between the seats.

“Impressive,” Phil remarked. “How did you manage to think of so many?”

“My students are atrocious at spelling.”

“We have the same students, Dan,” Phil deadpanned.

“Seriously, though. You wouldn’t think ‘Edgar Allan Poe’ was too hard to spell for a bunch of tenth graders.”

“You don’t want to see one of my tests, then. Try getting them to spell ‘endoplasmic reticulum’.” Phil cringed.

“At least on your tests the answers come from memory. In this, the guy’s name was printed at the top of the assignment.”

“You’re kidding.”

“I wish I were,” Dan laughed. “One boy spelled it ‘Pie’ instead of ‘Poe’.”

“He must’ve been hungry,” Phil chuckled.

“I’m hoping he did it on purpose,” Dan rolled his eyes, “As a joke.”

“Sometimes you have to hope,” Phil agreed.

* * *

As it turned out, two men go through a carton of eggs really fast. And also cereal—specifically Dan’s cereal, which Phil swore up and down he didn’t eat, but.

Any way, Dan made Phil come with him to the grocery store as punishment. (Or maybe because he could never remember everything he was supposed to get. “Write it in the notes on your phone!” Phil would say. Dan never listened, and usually he forgot something like baking soda.)

They forgot that there was a reason they never went shopping together. Well, they remembered as soon as they walked in and spotted one of their students shopping with her parents. The pair of teachers immediately started walking in separate directions.

They collectively tried to avoid their student at all costs, but unfortunately the supermarket was not big enough to hide them both. And unfortunately, their student was not shy enough to pretend as though she hadn’t seen them.

Phil turned a corner and crashed right into the girl—luckily not forcefully enough to cause either of them to topple.

“Oh, hi, Mr. Lester!” The girl smiled at her teacher, while all that streamed through Phil’s head was _Abort mission, abort mission, abort mission_.

“Hello, Celeste, how’s your weekend going?”

Before she could answer, her mother came up from behind her. She looked at her daughter expectantly, before Celeste spoke up: “This is my biology teacher, Mr. Lester.”

“Nice to meet you.” Phil stuck out his hand for a shake, and the woman took it.

“And you.”

Phil forced a tight smile before looking back over his shoulder, “It was nice seeing you, but I’m in a bit of a rush. Have a good rest of your weekend!”

As they said good bye, Phil turned around and promptly returned his cart before walking out of the store while they weren’t looking and retreating back to the car. He could stake out while Dan bought the groceries.

Dan found himself in the cereal aisle, contemplating what kind of cereal he should get when he saw Celeste again. He tried to avoid eye contact with her, in hope that she wouldn’t see him, but to no avail. She greeted him with a quirked eyebrow.

“Mr. Howell?”

“Hmm?” he hummed, as if he hadn’t seen her earlier. “Oh, hello, Celeste.”

“Perchance,” the student started, “did you come here with Mr. Lester? I just saw him.”

“Is he here?” Dan attempted to mask his nerves, “I’ll have to say hello.”

Dan noticed the girl’s eyes trailing down to Dan’s hands. He quickly grabbed a cereal box from in front of him.

“Well, I’ll see you Monday, then,” Celeste bid her teacher farewell, though Dan could tell she was pondering the situation. _Dammit._

“Have a good weekend,” Dan replied with a closed mouth smile.

When the girl disappeared around the corner of an aisle, Dan let out a sigh.

Dan hurried through the store and grabbed the last few things on his mental list, wishing Phil was with him because he had a nagging feeling that something was forgotten. He wanted to get out of there before he saw any more of their students; he didn’t want to risk another awkward encounter.

After progressing through the checkout line, Dan made sure no one was watching as he walked through the parking lot and loaded the groceries into the back seat of the car and sat himself into the passenger’s seat. Phil drummed his fingers on the steering wheel while Dan buckled his seatbelt, but then he abruptly stopped.

“Dan.”

“Yeah?” Dan looked up from where he was trying (and pitifully failing) to push the buckle into the socket.

“I’m wearing my ring.” Phil stared at his ring finger, the band on it reflecting a patch of light onto the roof of the car.

“Yeah? So?” Dan didn’t see the point of Phil saying anything, so he went back to buckling himself. After the belt finally clicked, he looked back to Phil. “What’s wrong with that?”

“ _Dan_ ,” Phil stressed, “We just saw a student.”

“Oh,” Dan breathed, “Oh, shit.”

“Yeah.”

“Do you think she noticed?” Dan inquired, wincing.

“I shook hands with her mum,” Phil recalled, “She probably saw.”

Dan sighed, “What are you going to do?”

“Nothing,” Phil replied, starting the car and pulling out of the parking lot, every so often casting quick glances down at his ring. “I’m just going to continue to not wear it at school. I doubt people will believe her, anyway.”

“Maybe she’ll even start to doubt herself when she doesn’t see you wearing it on Monday,” Dan suggested hopefully. “Or perhaps she’ll forget.”

Phil laughed, “That would be ideal.”

“Plus,” Dan continued to think of possibilities, “She might not have even seen it.”

“That would be even _more_ ideal.”

“And also, I’m not wearing my ring. Well, that’s a lie. But, you know.” Dan flicked at the ring tucked away underneath his shirt.

“So she’ll think that I’m married to someone that’s not you,” Phil responded, knowing the response he’d get.

“I should’ve shown her my ring, too.” Dan lived up to Phil’s expectations.

Phil rolled his eyes, “That’s exactly what we’re avoiding.”

“Yeah, but you’re _not_ married to anyone that’s not me,” Dan countered, to which Phil chuckled.

“I suppose you’re right.”

When the pair returned home, Dan realized he’d forgotten the bread.

* * *

The biology classroom buzzed on that Monday, and not just with the usual ‘what’d you do over the weekend?’ talk.

As it’d turned out, Celeste _had_ seen the ring, and she hadn’t forgotten about it. This became evident to Phil when he overheard a few students gossiping before the bell rang.

“He’s not wearing one now?” one said, cocking their head in Phil’s direction. Phil looked away so that the kids wouldn’t know he was listening.

“Do you think Celeste lied?” another spoke, prompting Phil to purse his lips. He ruffled through some papers to look busy.

“I don’t know. Why would she lie about him wearing a ring?”

“She also said she saw Mr. Howell,” someone near the other students joined their conversation. “at the same grocery store, at the same time.”

“But Mr. Howell wasn’t wearing a ring,” one contributed, tapping their finger on their temple.

“Coincidence, then?”

“There are too many coincidences with those two.”

The bell chimed, causing the students to disperse to their seats. Phil let out a breath of relief before he began to speak, “Good morning class!” He couldn’t quite ignore the fact that half of the class seemed to be staring at his left hand.

“I hope you all had a lovely weekend,” he said as he tried desperately to avoid looking down at his hands. “But unfortunately, we must go back to learning about the fun and exciting metric system!” He clasped his hands together as he spoke enthusiastically. “As I’d hope most of you have figured out, I’m British, so that means I grew up with the metric system. And I’ll tell you, once you understand it, it’s so much easier than the imperial system.”

He began to explain the system and its base on ten, but it didn’t take much explaining before he handed out a short worksheet. Most of these kids had been learning and relearning the metric system for years in both their science and math classes, so it was an understatement to say they understood it by now. Phil didn’t understand why America didn’t just adopt the metric system in the first place; if they weren’t so stubborn, the school system wouldn’t need to do an entire unit on it, especially not twice annually.

As Phil had distracted his students from the ring fiasco with a worksheet, Dan hadn’t done as well. Before the bell had even rung, Dan had heard multiple things that made him want to rip the ring off of the chain around his neck and shove it onto his finger. _“Of course Phil isn’t in love with Ms. Christensen_ ,” he wanted to say. _“He’s married to me!”_ Well, that was exactly what they were trying to hide, wasn’t it?

He opted for calling the class to attention instead, after he’d heard someone say “They’re both science teachers, it makes sense!”. With all eyes on him, Dan let out a breath.

“How’s about we stop discussing teachers’ personal lives?” he started, but moved on quickly, before students could comment. (Though one managed to hiss out “ _Jealous_.”) “Please hand your homework from last night forward.”

As the kids rummaged through their folders to find the homework, Dan turned to the whiteboard. He uncapped a marker and wrote “Edgar Allan Poe” in large script across the middle of the board.

Before Dan could collect the student’s assignments, one managed to speak. “Mr. Howell, I heard you were at the grocery store when Mr. Lester was. Is it weird to see other teachers outside of school?”

Dan thought for a moment; this wasn’t a harmful question. “Well, it’s kind of like seeing your classmates. Besides, I see Mr. Lester all the time—” _Shit._

“You do?” Some students’ jaws dropped at the subtle admission.

“I mean—I see him with Ms. Christensen.” _Fuck._

Eyebrows raised around the room, wondering where this had come from.

Dan cleared his throat and collected the students assignments and set them on his desk, switching them out for the stack of papers he had corrected prior. He had a problem with not returning things on time.

“I’m handing back your assignment from a couple weeks back on Edgar Allan Poe,” he enunciated, gesturing to the board and trying to change the subject. He flicked through the papers in his hand to pass them back to his students. “Note the spelling.”

The students scanned their eyes over their assignments. There were mixed reactions over Dan’s many, many puns, but he earned a chuckle or two from a couple of students—the one’s who obviously had the best sense of humor, anyway.

“I didn’t think a man with a three-letter surname would cause so much spelling trouble,” Dan quirked an eyebrow. “Especially not when his name was printed at the top of the assignment…”

Several students groaned at their own stupidity.

“Anyway, some of you will be glad to hear, we’re just about done studying Mr. Poe. The test on this unit is on Wednesday, meaning we’ll review tomorrow, and after the test we’ll be moving on.” Dan picked up another stack of papers from his desk and shuffled back to the front of the classroom. “I have a study guide for you to work on the rest of this class period. We’ll be going over it tomorrow as our review.”

“Mr. Lester always plays games with us as a review!” someone complained, to which Dan rolled his eyes.

“Do I look like Mr. Lester to you?” Dan initially asked, but then he took it back. “Actually, don’t answer that.” The class giggled as he tried to think of a way to continue. Dan handed the stack of papers to a student and changed the subject back to school work. “Anyway, here’s your study guide; you have the rest of the class period to work. If you don’t finish, it’s homework, and if you have any questions on how to spell Mr. Poe’s name,” he gestured to the whiteboard behind him. “Don’t be too shy to ask.”

The kids worked in relative silence, spare two boys in the back, which left Dan some time to enter grades into the gradebook. The end of the third quarter was nearing fast, so he didn’t want to get behind on entering grades (like he had for the prior two quarters).

About twenty-five minutes of quiet working time passed before there was a knock on the door. Dan peered towards the door, calling, “Yes?”

Mrs. Pieterson entered, her heels muting as they stepped onto the carpeted floor. She cast one glance at Dan’s whiteboard before striding across the room to meet Dan.

“Mr. Howell,” she spoke in a loud whisper, “you can’t force your political views on the students!” She gestured up to where Dan had written “#Kanye2020”. Dan looked back and forth between the principal and his written hashtag with wide eyes—she couldn’t be serious. He couldn’t believe she’d just noticed it and had a problem with it now; it was already the third term of four in the school year—practically nearing the end.

“What?” Dan eventually replied, “It’s not—”

“It is exactly that. And I expected better of you.” Ms. Pieterson blinked as Dan furrowed his eyebrows.

Nearly all the students’ eyes in the room followed Dan as he shamefully picked up the whiteboard eraser and dragged it slowly over his writing, erasing his apparent “political statement”.

“That, too,” the principal pointed at the _Kanye Quote of the Day_.

“What? I can’t—” Dan began to defend himself when he was cut off by a student.

“Aww, c’mon, Mrs. Pieterson, we like that!”

Dan cocked his head, as if to ask “ _you do?_ ”.

The principal narrowed her eyes at the class as they all nodded in agreement.

“Fine,” she sighed, defeated. “You can keep the quote. But what’s with all these frogs?” She looked bemused as her eyes scanned the walls of the English classroom.

“They’re motivational. See, they say ‘believe you can’.” Dan pointed to the letters on the bottom of one of the Pepes.

“And you like these, too?” she asked the students, who vigorously nodded in response.

Dan was a bit surprised that the students finally ( _finally_ ) seemed to be appreciating him, to say the least.

* * *

The two teachers didn’t quite know how they ended up in the teachers lounge closet, but there they were, their bodies flush against each other and Phil’s back pressed against the door. Maybe the fact that summer was nearing made them feel a bit more reckless.

“It’s a bit hot in here,” Phil chuckled as Dan’s hands roamed over the top of his shirt and played with the hem.

“Maybe it’s me,” Dan grinned in response, to which Phil shook his head.

Before Phil could say any more, Dan moved his hands upwards and gripped the sides of Phil’s head, turning it so that he could have access to Phil’s neck. Phil let out a deep breath, “Don’t mark—”

“I know,” Dan spoke against Phil’s skin, his teeth just barely grazing Phil’s neck.

Dan unattached his mouth from Phil’s neck for a moment to ask, “Do you think we could get fired for this?”

“I don’t know,” Phil breathed. “Probably not… just—”

Phil raised his hand to underneath Dan’s chin and lifted the man’s head to connect their lips.

After a few more minutes of frantic kissing, the bell chimed out and the sound seeped into the closet.

“Fuck. Shit,” Dan pushed Phil off of him, trying to flatten his hair. “Fuck.”

“Calm down,” Phil tried to catch his breath, using his own hands to press down Dan’s hair. “We have five minutes.”

“Until class starts!” Dan exclaimed, his voice still at a hoarse whisper, “We’re supposed to be in the room when the kids get there!”

“It’s fine, Dan,” Phil stressed, “It’s gonna be okay.”

Dan swallowed harshly, exiting the closet and closing the door on Phil behind him so they wouldn’t emerge together. He took a deep breath and he strided out of the lounge and into his classroom, checking his face and hair with the camera on his laptop. The first student walked into the room as Dan adjusted his fringe, trying to ignore the bright pink tint to his cheeks.

He watched Phil stride quickly past his doorway soon thereafter, fastening his glasses onto his face. He noticed the hem of Phil’s button down shirt was half tucked into his pants, while the rest hung loosely over his bottom. Repressing the urge to yell out to Phil to fix it, Dan sighed and diverted his attention.

Phil, on the other hand, walked into his classroom to meet four students. The kids immediately noticed their teacher’s clothing mishap, but declined on telling him directly. They just snickered to each other, making jokes about how it could’ve happened. Phil paid no attention to them and reached for the fish food, sprinkling some into the tank and watching as Queen Elizabeth and the other fish swam swiftly up to consume the flakes.

By the time he was done feeding the fish their lunch, most students had arrived to class and were talking amongst themselves (and mostly, their conversations consisted entirely of Phil). The bell rang, signalling the beginning of the period, but as the bell sounded, the students continued to chat.

By that time Phil nearly felt normal, the closet fiasco barely affecting him anymore. (Dan was a different story.)

“Alright, alright,” Phil spoke as he walked to the front of the class. Most of his students abruptly stopped all conversation to listen to what he had to say next, like possibly an explanation for his mess of an appearance. Unfortunately for them, he clasped his hands together and began a speech about genetics.

Throughout the whole duration of the class, Phil’s shirt remained untucked. And still, no one dared tell him. Well, it wasn’t causing any harm, not really.

Until his next class, that is.

Students put two and two together when they came from Mr. Howell’s room where their teacher constantly ruffled his hair, added to the fact he had a horrid blush spread across his face. The students’ chatter was wild after they’d seen Mr. Lester’s shirt and slightly fussed hair, but one student had had enough of it.

“Who the fuck cares if our teachers are fucking?!” he stressed, causing Phil’s attention to flicker to him. “Not me!”

Several students stared at him as well, surprised that he’d had the nerves to swear so loudly with a teacher in proximity.

“They’re not fucking,” a girl stated matter-of-factly. “It’s so obvious they’re not gay. Have you seen the way Mr. Lester looks at Ms. Christensen? Plus, they’re both science teachers. Meant to be.”

Someone rolled their eyes. “They’re just friends, clearly.”

“All three of you are so blind,” another said, “Mr. Lester and Mr. Howell are married.”

“Why do they have different last names, then?”

The discussion was cut off by Phil clearing his throat in the front of the room. “It’s rude to talk about someone when they’re in the room,” he stated, fixing his shirt and raising his eyebrows at his students. “And to get back on track here, you’ll remember that genetics are the basis of all life.…”

* * *

“They said… _what_?” Dan asked that night as he laid splayed out on the couch, his legs draped over Phil’s lap. Phil had just told him about his students in class. “Just because you’re both science teachers?”

“I guess so,” Phil chuckled, “English and science don’t mesh, apparently.”

“So we’re like _Romeo and Juliet_ , except gay teacher edition,” Dan quipped,

“Except with less death, I hope,” Phil snorted, leaning over Dan’s legs to reach the remote that sat on the coffee table.

“Let’s hope we’re more like _A Midsummer Night’s Dream_ , then. It ends in a wedding; therefore, it’s a comedy.”

“Stop being an English nerd, Dan,” Phil groaned, clicking through channels on the television.

“It’s _literally_ my job to be an English nerd,” Dan retorted, “So to quote Hamlet Act III, Scene III, Line 87—‘No’.”

Phil rolled his eyes. “I hate you.”

“You really don’t.” Dan grinned, thankful to whatever force out there that let him meet Phil.

* * *

As the last bell of the day sounded, all of Phil’s students eagerly piled out of his classroom. It was the second to last Friday of school and everyone was excited to get home and forget responsibilities until the _final_ Monday, including Phil. He had no students to tutor after school that day and the thought of lounging around in pajamas all day sounded like heaven. Unfortunately for him, Dan had work to do and they carpooled.

Phil decided a long time ago that homework over the weekend was not his forte, especially not at the end of the year, and therefore, he had nothing to grade. So, Phil kicked up his legs and leaned back into his chair to relax. He closed his eyes, but minutes later, he was interrupted by a knock at the door. He opened them, half-expecting to find Dan who finished his work early or a confused student to tutor, but instead found Beth Christensen standing at his door with cupcakes and a smile.

“Hey!” she chirped, holding the violet colored cupcakes out. “Do you want one? I’m kind of celebrating the end of the school year a bit early. Or maybe this is just a final push to get to you to the end.”

If there was anything in life that Phil was sure of it was that, 1) biology was a natural science concerned with the study of life and living organisms, including their structure, function, growth, evolution, distribution, identification, and taxonomy, and 2) he would never say no to a cupcake.

“I just thought I should offer you one in person, since you’re still here. I was going to leave them in the teachers’ lounge anyway.” Beth smiled, looking down at her cupcakes.

Phil approached her and took one of them out of the box, “Thank you!”

“No problem,” she replied.

“While you’re here,” Phil started, “Have you been listening to the students lately?”

“The relationship speculations? Hard to ignore,” she laughed. “I hear that we’re married now.”

“Students will take anything and blow it out of proportion,” Phil chuckled.

“Yeah, I told my girlfriend about the whole thing and she really got a kick out of it.” Beth held the cupcake container against her torso, shifting its weight slightly.

“Dan quite has a problem with it,” Phil responded immediately, not entirely ignoring her statement but not pointing it out, either.

“Oh! I’ve always wondered, you and Dan are—”

“Married, yeah.” Phil thought it felt really nice to say that after hiding it for so long.

“You should really meet Leo sometime! You’d love her. Maybe we should all go out as a sort of double date or something. I dunno, it could be fun,” Beth suggested with a slight shrug.

“Yeah, definitely! I’ll bring it up to Dan; I’m sure he’d agree.” Phil smiled warmly as Beth bid farewell and continued on her way to drop the cupcakes off in the teachers’ lounge.

That’s when Phil began to wonder why she didn’t drop them off in the lounge in the morning. He shrugged to himself and began to unwrap his violet colored cupcake.

Soon thereafter, Dan barged into Phil’s classroom, bag and cupcake in tow.

“You got one, too?” Phil asked him, discarding his cupcake wrapper into the trash.

“Yeah. That was really nice of her,” Dan followed suit and threw his wrapper into the garbage before heading out of the door with Phil.

“Warming up to her finally?” Phil pondered, the pair falling in step.

“Anyone that gives me food warms up to me real quick,” Dan told, taking a bite of his cupcake. He moaned as he chewed it, and Phil had to remind him that they were still in the school.

“She invited us to dinner with her girlfriend sometime,” Phil said as they walked down the hallway. “You interested?”

“Girlfriend?” Dan swallowed a bit of his cupcake.

Phil just nodded, “So… do you want to?”

Dan still didn’t answer, “I can’t believe I’ve kind of been jealous this whole time and…”

Rolling his eyes, Phil made Dan’s decision for him. “I’ll talk to her on Monday about it.”

* * *

The so-called “double date” came sooner rather than later; Dan and Phil found themselves getting ready the following Wednesday.

“How did we let her convince us to go out on a _Wednesday_?” Dan whined as he slipped on his shoes. “Wednesday is like, definitely-do-not-leave-the-house-after-work day.”

“Who came up with that rule?” Phil asked as he grabbed the keys from the table and slipped his phone into his pocket.

“I did, but that doesn’t mean it’s any less valid. But seriously, there’s like two days of school left, why didn’t we wait?” he complained, ready to take off the shoes he’d just put on and go flop onto the couch.

“There’s two days of school left for the _students_ , Dan.” Phil sighed, opening the door for Dan to exit before him.

“We should be getting ready for final exams,” Dan tried to argue, but Phil rolled his eyes and shoved Dan out the door, shutting it behind him. “Besides, what if a student sees us?”

“Like you said, there’s only two days of school left… what harm could it do?” Phil opened the car door and plopped down in the driver’s seat; Dan followed behind with an exasperated sigh in the passenger’s. “Plus, if they see us, they could assume that I’m out with Beth and you’re out with her girlfriend. They wouldn’t know the truth.”

And with that, they drove to the restaurant, finding Beth and her girlfriend Leo already there waiting for them. Phil pulled up into the parking space beside Beth’s and turned off the car. Beth did the same and shortly after, she and her girlfriend stepped out of the car.

As soon as Dan caught sight of them, he admired the complementary aesthetic of their relationship. While Beth was short with a brunette bob, Leo contrasted her in nearly every way, being extremely tall with long sweeping blonde hair. And here he and Phil were, looking exactly the same.

“Hello Dan, Phil,” Beth said, gesturing to them respectively as she approached. “This is Leo.” She smiled up at Leo as she introduced her to her coworkers.

Leo shook their hands in turn and grinned at them, “It’s nice to meet you!”

“Likewise,” Phil responded, before leading the group into the restaurant.

As soon as they were seated, they knew they’d made a mistake when they chose which restaurant they were going to, as their server was, of course, a student.

After faltering for a moment when she’d seen who she was serving, the waitress spoke up. “Hello, I’m Yasmine, and I’ll be your server today! It’s nice to see you… _all,_ here.”

“Hey, Yasmine,” Phil greeted, trying to hide his surprise as he subtly scooted a bit away from his husband. She passed the menus out to the group.

“Can I get you anything to drink?” She asked the standard waitress questions, not giving in to her curiosity. Everyone ordered their drinks and she went on her way.

After she had gone out of earshot, Dan let out a large breath and turned toward Phil. “What’re the chances?” he groaned, leaning his forearms on the table before him.

Beth let out a laugh in response, “This always happens to us, too. Except none of my students know who Leo is, which is a small blessing in itself.”

For the most part, the meal progressed swimmingly. Dan got along with Leo extremely well, and Phil and Beth were left to be science nerds together. Dan swore he heard one of them say “Did you know the scientific name for a brain freeze is _Sphenopalatine ganglioneuralgia_?” but he couldn’t imagine 1) how anyone would remember that or be able to pronounce it, and 2) how a conversation would lead to that.

Well, the meal was going fine until Yasmine came back and asked if they wanted the bill, and if they did, how they’d like to split it. She particularly eyed the two men as she asked.

Phil had apparently forgotten that she was a student for a second there, because as he gestured to Dan he said, “I’m paying for him.”

Dan nearly hit him, but he refrained and offered Yasmine a forced smile.

“And I for her,” Leo followed suit with a subtle shrug.

“Will do,” Yasmine said as she turned away to get their two checks, poorly masking the surprise on her face.

“What the hell was that?” Dan groaned, this time not making sure the student was out of earshot before speaking.

Phil shrugged, “I forgot, oh well. It’s the end of the year anyway.”

Beth raised her eyebrows at the two of them and smiled. “It’ll be fine,” she encouraged, a warm smile directed mostly toward Dan. “Don’t worry.”

Dan’s facial expression suddenly shifted, “I’m actually surprised we made it this long.” He let out a soft chuckle that Phil reciprocated.

“To be fair,” Beth tapped her index finger on her temple, “I think more than half of the sophomore class thinks you two are dating. And some from the other classes do, too.”

Phil nodded in defeat, but still replied to her, “And the other fraction thinks _we’re_ married.”

Yasmine approached with the bill just as the four of them began to laugh, so she politely slid the bills to the people who’d claimed them and went on her way. The group, one by one, carefully slid out of the booth to pay their checks at the front of the restaurant. Dan made an effort to avoid all possible eye contact with his student as he and Phil walked toward the lobby of the restaurant and left together.

* * *

The following Thursday went almost exactly as expected, students chattered nonstop with theories about their teachers (which Dan didn’t really mind all that much anymore) and about what had just been found out the day prior. Dan and Phil stayed quiet about it for that first day after, declining to comment when students brought it up.

The next day, however, the last day of school, students walked into their English classroom to be greeted by the same inspirational Pepes they’d seen all year, and by a new name on the board. “Mr. Howell-Lester” it said, and jaws dropped as students read it.

As the last first bell of the day rang, Dan clasped his hands together and began to justify the writing. Observant students noticed a wedding band on his ring finger instead of on a chain around his neck as he did so. “On the first day of school, I introduced myself to you. Now that it’s the last day, I figured it was time to introduce myself again.”

And sure, it was kind of dumb and kind of cliche, but the two teachers didn’t really mind. (The problem now was differentiating them; both of their last names were the same _and_ they looked alike—but that was a problem for another year.)

**Author's Note:**

> About the Donald Trump comments—  
> We decided to leave them in, because if we can let this Dan and Phil live in a universe where Donald Trump isn't president, we're going to let them.


End file.
